Cooking in Namibia revisited

So remember when I was going to write about food? Whoops! Generally, breakfast is oatmeal with peanut butter, snack is bread and butter or eggs and toast or bread and like... bologna, lunch is an apple and peanut butter, and dinner varies. Sometimes, my room mate will cook porridge and game meat and stew or gravy.  Other times it's baked beans, rice and veggies. Or fried Kavango River fish and rice or porridge (delicious... and I was watching her cook them last time, so I'm going to help next time! Update on that to come. Also an update on how to best prepare kudu meat).

Anyway, throughout the term, I've made some pretty delicious things.  I made my go-to dish for a few volunteers.  Mushroom cream sauce with white wine with chicken and pasta. Turned out well, and it was on an electric stove top thing with only one side really working... the water for the pasta was the hardest part! Turns out the water kettle switch is opposite the one I have in my flat; it wasn't broken! Oops.  But I think it was worth the wait!
               Ingredients:
                                1 can mushrooms
                                1 bottle of wine (you'll need about a cup for the recipe, the rest is for you!)
                                1 clove garlic
                                1 small onion
                                1.5 cup cream
                                1 braai package of chicken
                                salt and pepper to taste
                                Pasta for 3
              Procedure:
                        Put water on to boil 2 hours ago
                        Cook chicken in the frying pan, because it's the only pan you have. With salt and pepper
                        When the chicken is finished, leave the juices in the pan, but remove the meat. Saute the onion and garlic in the rest of the juices. Add mushrooms after 5 minutes, tossing occasionally for 5 more minutes.
                        While the veggies are heating, cut the chicken off the bone.
                        Add wine to the pan, boil and simmer for a few minutes. Let's call it 5 minutes.
                        Go back to trying to get the chicken off the bone before the dog gets to it. For those of you into Namibian music, I accidentally typed that "The Dogg."
                       Add the cream to the pan and turn down the heat just before boiling, so that it will simmer for another... oh... 5 minutes (but it can be left over low heat for a while). Add the chicken.
                       If you're lucky, now would be the perfect time to cook the pasta!
                    Serves 3 volunteers (about 5 normal people)

For the fourth of July, I went "Treat-yo'-self" and bought feta cheese and mixed it into burger patties.  Very good decision! With avocado and tomato and lettuce and home-made barbeque sauce made by a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer, for those not ITK (In the Know)).

I've been making a lot of cream-based soups with sausage and spinach, which have been turning out well.

Tonight, I made a nice veggie and noodle soup.
                  Ingredients:
                      One package of Knolls Curry Vegetable Soup Mix
                     1/3 large onion (probably could use 1/2)
                     1 clove garlic (could definitely use 2)
                     2 small green tomatoes (probably want to use 3)
                     1 small green pepper (probably could use 2)
                     about 1.5 cups frozen veggie mix (could definitely push this to 2 cups)
                     .75 L water to cook 2 cups uncooked macaroni (could probably cut the pasta in half if you're not going to add more veggies--the ratio I ended up with was really off)
               Procedure:
                      cook pasta
                      While water is boiling etc cut veggies and saute fresh ones until the onions are translucent
                      Add frozen veggies to the cooked veggies, and keep over low-medium heat until they melt
                      Combine the soup mix with about 3 cups of water
                      Add cooked pasta and its water to the veggies
                      stir
                      add soup mix + water
                      bring to a boil
                       simmer for like... oh.... 5 minutes. I think. (I say five minutes when I don't know how long I left it for. It was enough time to wash the pasta pot and put away some other dishes and stir it a few times)
                        Enjoy with 3 other friends! Or save some for tomorrow... there are about 4 servings.

And one last recipe for you.
                     You will need:
                             Spoon
                             Peanut butter
                             Apple
                     Procedure:
                            open jar of peanut butter by twisting off the lid
                            put spoon end of spoon into the jar
                            scoop out as much peanut butter as will fit in the spoon (or catch some in your mouth as it falls)
                           spread on each bite of your apple.
                           hopefully, you will have an excess of peanut butter.
                          If you do, don't waste it. Put it in yo' mouf (Sorry I couldn't wait!)

Sunshine and Yoga

After hours of exams in the morning, and hours of study in the afternoon, I gave an open invitation to all of the learners to join me for yoga over in the sports complex.  Walking out to the brick area by the basketball courts, the sun was shining warmly.  Water bottle in hand, and learners in tow, I stretched out, ready to lead them in yoga.

20 learners joined me, and we moved through the vinyasa, sun salutations and a warrior flow. Then we came to child's pose, and as I was introducing it, I suggested that they pretend someone was sitting on their back, pushing down, as they stretched their hands out as far as they would go. Opposing forces to stretch your back.  Well, the girls decided that pretending was too much.  Why pretend, when you have a good friend ready and willing to sit on you.  So they partnered up and helped each other achieve a deeper stretch, then resumed trying to get that feeling on their own. 

The learners all took it super seriously, but not too seriously.  They were there to stretch and free their minds from the classroom, under the open sky, saluting the sun before it sank behind the trees.  We worked hard for more than 30 minutes of solid yoga.

Tomorrow will be a core-focused day. Boats, twists and backbends galore.

Inauguration, A Brief Summary

I know I didn’t update you all right away about the amazing event we had here on the 22^nd.  The school was officially opened by the President of Namibia. A speech was given, a plaque was revealed, a dance was done (video below!).  Our learners were such troopers! With a long morning which was supposed to be filled with our school’s cultural groups and presentations but was instead filled with miscommunication, they kept smiles on their faces and welcomed the President, Minister of Education and other major dignitaries with full hearts.   

First: Links to the videos of the dance!
Rehearsal for the dance. Electric Slide=Dance De Familia!
Rehearsing the transition from a Damara song into an Oshivambo song
Performing for the President! (It was really windy, so sorry about the sound)

Second: Pictures!

Our dining hall, full of learners, teachers and community members

The President of Namibia, inaugurating the school. Behind him are many Ministers and dignitaries.

Our learners, lined up to welcome His Excellency, the Honourable Pohamba

After the president's speech and lunch, our learners took the stage to present cultural dances to remaining guests and visitors. We had lots of laughs, and one Kwaito group from a neighboring school even took the stage and showed us their moves!

Learners dancing Kavango dances

Damara Nama Stap dances

Vambo Dancers

Still looking sharp after dancing

I think my favourite part of the day was cleaning up and re-setting up the school the way it normally is.  We had to move all of the tables and benches out of the dining hall, and shift a lot of tables and chairs around in the classrooms for the event.  That afternoon, we shifted everything back.  The kids were amazing with this.  A group of four grade 11 boys kept asking, “Miss, what next?” all afternoon.  Never a “Miss, we’re tired” or a “Miss, we’ve done enough.” Always “What’s next?” 

I helped motivate some of the less enthusiastic young men and women by partnering up with the smallest grade 8 girls to carry benches back to the dining hall, purposefully walking past all of the grade 11 learners, and talking loudly about how strong this little girl was, and how it was too bad that no one else at the school was so strong.  Blows to ego can get people going fast!

I was incredibly motivated to get the school running back to normal, and I was so excited by the prospect that positive energy just exuded from me, which helped a lot.  That and the music blasting from the new speakers in the dining hall!

Overall, the event was filled with motivational speeches from Governors, Ministers and the President, great food and loving, highly disciplined learners. And the day was beautiful.  Best of all, the day is over!

Now on to exams!

ICT Conference in Ongwediva *An announcement at the end*

This weekend, the school counsellor, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) teacher, and I attended a conference hosted by WorldTeach on ICT in schools.  We travelled for twelve hours to get there, most of that time also travelling with our circuit inspector (pretty much equivalent to a superintendent in the US), and other teachers and the principal from Rundu Secondary School.  We spent the night at Bennie's Entertainment Park and Conference Center, which was nice... complementary hot breakfast, yes please! Amanda, the semester volunteer in Rundu, and I, had dinner with Bret, who did a great job planning the conference and Mallory, another semester volunteer. 

 

We heard from volunteers about their achievements and struggles with ICT in the classroom, then discussed ways to overcome some of the challenges present. 

I thought it was pretty cool to show people the direction of technology in Namibian classrooms, and other teachers, principals and circuit officials were very impressed by the technology that we have at Vision School.  Other volunteers mentioned that Smartboards etc are coming to their schools.  I think this tangible knowledge that technology is coming helped motivate other schools to start preparing their teachers now with laptops, internet and training to embrace technology as soon as it arrives. 

It was also great to see the other volunteers for a bit! I met the summer volunteers, and roomed with Sherri, a teacher from Kansas who has so much experience with teacher training and teaching at so many levels. 

She helped me a lot, and provided me with hand-outs, ideas, links and names to help me next year, when I am the Teaching Fellow for WorldTeach Namibia.  This position will mean that I continue on for another year at RVS, and work with WorldTeach to train incoming volunteers and provide teaching-related support to them as they start their career as a volunteer teacher here. I will be in Namibia for another year!  

 In other news, back in Divundu, goats are able to sneak through the school fence and have eaten all our shrubs around campus. Now to find a way to keep them from the soccer pitch so they don’t get to that grass.